The Rain (25 page)

            We move in close and bump into each other. It’s the first time we’ve touched since we were under the tent on the boat together. I move back but we still huddle close and listen in. The radio is crackling, in and out, but I can’t help but feel like someone is suddenly going to start talking. But nothing happens. It’s just static. But at least it’s on. We wait forever and nothing comes. Finally Dusty says he wants to conserve the batteries. These were the last ones I had to check—there are no more, he says. I think about the tent we left on the bank of Blue City island. Batteries in there, brand new. But all that has probably been blown in a mudslide to the bottom of the ocean with our canoe by now. Dusty shuts it off.

I look around the room. We’ve got a couple bunks that we sleep in, tucked in the corner. Ernest and Russell have taken to each other with great enthusiasm, discussing Leadville and poring over the map. Looking for the best path in through the Rockies so we’re not grounded on shoals. Ernest was upset he’d overlooked so much good gear on the face eater boats. We weren’t intending to slow down for anything, he’d said. But a map and a radio and a gun was a big oversight. He was quite upset about it when we brought it aboard and showed him.

Everyone calls Ernest’s other crewmate Clemmy. So I do too, if I have to get his attention. He is quiet, and acts like Ernest, but with fewer words. I can tell he’s battling something inside, some kind of loss. Just like Clint. Russell thinks they lost something in the gale. Maybe their families. But I wouldn’t dare ask Clemmy. And I don’t like to talk to Clint at all.

            I’m still trying to prevent the feelings of bonding, but it’s become very hard. The crew is filling a void of some kind that I shouldn’t need filled. Dusty has had more trouble than me. I can tell he doesn’t like Clint at all. He thinks there’s something going on with him. I think it might have to do with Clint always looking at me. Like he’s attracted to me. Russell said something to him once, when we were trading shifts steering the motor boat. Every day we have to go down and get on it so that it doesn’t get dragged sideways against the swells and slow the
Resilience
down.

            It had been my shift. I was climbing down the rope ladder and Russell saw Clint watching me. I couldn’t quite make out their exchange. But when I turned back to look, I could tell as clear as day what was happening. It was over his stares. Russell was tearing into him. I saw Ernest walk over and I almost panicked. I didn’t have a gun on me. I didn’t know where Ernest’s loyalties would fall. But Ernest went up and ripped right into Clint, just like Russell had been doing. He seems to understand something—they both seem to understand something that I don’t. It’s not that I think he’s evil, or strange, but that he’s attracted to me. I’m sure I’ve felt it before from men. But I can’t be so sure that I doubt Russell’s judgment over mine. At least with Clint. I think about Dusty, and how Russell never shows that same sentiment. And there’s something about Voley—the way he acts around Clint. He won’t just go up to him, looking for attention, the way he does with the rest of us. For some reason, he keeps his distance. But when all of us are together, it’s often Clint that Voley watches. 

I’m looking at our bunks when Russell comes down the stairs. He hasn’t coughed in days. He’s rejuvenated by the fish. That’s what he says it is, anyway. And he says he can’t wait to start running again. As soon as we hit land. Leadville. I’m going to run every day. And that’s what he’s come down to talk to us about.

            “According to Clemmy, we’re going to be there tomorrow. Leadville. You hear me Tan?” he says. He holds his smile for a long time and looks at me, and then, he just rushes in. Years of struggle are in his hug. He’s brimming with it. I feel it flow through me. I think of all of our long shots, and the terrible and endless moving, just to make it through each day. All of it finally coming to an end. He pushes me back and kisses my forehead. Then he lets go and turns to Dusty.

We still haven’t told Dusty about what happened on Blue City. I don’t think he’d try to turn us around anymore if he knew, but neither of us will tell him. And we don’t talk about it either, it’s just an unspoken decision, a psychic understanding between Russell and me. It has to be kept secret. Our own ugly secret.

Russell extends his hand, out toward the boy who tried to kill him. He keeps it hanging until Dusty finally takes it. It’s like Dusty has somehow started to let the optimism of Leadville get to him too. They shake hands. Both of them smiling, and Dusty starts to laugh. He’s laughing for the first time, and I hear the beautiful sound and drink it in—it’s relief. I want to squeeze him, and to take him to the bunk. But I can’t. It’s all too overwhelming. And I think for a moment of a startling insight about our drastic turn of fortune—the man above, Ernest, must be Poseidon himself. He has to be.

            Russell once told me the story of the Old Gods. They could come down from their great mountain, even though theirs wasn’t covered in rain. And they could appear as people. They could help whomever they saw fit. It was some sort of divine justice. If you made good choices, you were taken care of. But Russell never said he believed in that—it was just how those stories went. But somehow, in this moment of happiness, I think about it, and it makes sense. I half believe in it. We’re being repaid for all the months we’ve gone without sinking to the worst levels of human behavior. We’ve kept some sense of right and wrong, and that’s the veneer, and everything it’s built around. And now, this ship, this crew, it’s all here to reward us for how we’ve endured everything—the rain, the wet, the cold, the empty driving force that compels us to live despite the hanging question that we don’t know what for. Even if we got to Leadville, what would it be for?

            And I realize—surely it’s for this. A sense of family. Community. Love. Being here for each other. And all the armor that’s helped us survive, as we reach the doorstep of Leadville, is thrown out the window. We’re heading towards something other than Leadville—we’re heading toward being real live people again. I kneel down next to Voley as Russell tells Dusty he’s proud of him for sticking with us. He doesn’t go into anything more detailed than that. He just goes quiet and looks at us both. Then he reveals it, what he’s really been holding back from us. You ready to see it? he says. And we’re completely ruined because we get it—they’ve spotted land, there’s land up there and no one’s told us. We’re down here toying with the radio, and the reality of the dream is in their vision above. I can’t get mad though, I just run up the stairs past him. He laughs. So does Dusty, but he’s chasing at my heels. And Voley somehow gets there first.

There it is—the vast range of the Rocky Mountains. I don’t have to ask. Everywhere in front of us are the spiking tops and vast tabletops of the mountain range. Many of them appear high above the water, and it looks like the rain sea is much lower than it was in Wyoming. I can’t be sure until we’re closer, but I think there’s more land than I’ve seen since Indianapolis. Ernest comes out of the wheelhouse and into the rain. It’s so much colder than it’s ever been. The water slaps my face, but I don’t pay it any attention. I can’t. The view has paralyzed me more than any freezing water could. And I throw my arms around Dusty in a fit of joy, and Ernest smiles. He’s smoking his pipe. He’s a man of endless fish and tobacco. Poseidon himself. He smiles and tells us what we know—Over that pass, somewhere back there—and he points to nothing I can see—is Leadville.

            Russell has had plenty of time to work over Ernest. And Ernest is sold on Leadville now too. Both of them have given up the idea that it’s not raining there, because we’re too close now for that to be true. But it doesn’t matter. The sight of these mountains is enough to squash the last doubts. The matter of the face eaters—whether they had been coming or going from Leadville, is no longer debated. It’s a downer, a remnant of the hopeless past. The lawless, reckless life of gloom. Ernest and Russell are on the same page, and they’ll have none of it anymore. Dusty turns to me, apprehensive because Russell has come up behind us. And somehow, my love of Russell has changed. And his love of me is completely clear to me for the first time: He puts his hand on my shoulder. And his other goes to Dusty’s. He understands.

            I look back at him, and he’s smiling, even while I’m wrapped around Dusty. Clint and Clemmy come up. I catch Clint’s glance but look away—I can’t think of him now. I can think of nothing other than these gorgeous mountains. All of them ours.

            “Here’s how it’s going to go,” says Ernest. He explains that if there is no Leadville, if it’s all bullshit, then we’ll make our own Leadville. There’re enough fish to be had in this sea. And we’ll build up a nice place to live in the mountains. Nothing will stop this man.

Alright, that’s enough, says Russell. Your turn on the boat. We’ve got to keep going. No time to slow down.

            I know it’s my turn on the motor boat. I slip off of Dusty and go to the stern. I pull the rope to get it close and climb down the ladder and hop in. Then the
Resilience’s
motor starts up and I’m dragged along from the back, seeing only the butt of the ship. I keep her straight. Dusty appears over the rail of the stern. He wants me to pull the boat up close to the stern. He has something to tell me. The mountains start to come into wide view around the edges of the ship, spreading out like arms to welcome us. I turn the motor on and pull up. He jumps right down into the boat. We rock and almost catch a wall of water and I ask him what the hell he’s doing. But it’s obvious because he pushes into me and the wheel, grabs me hard, and presses in with his mouth. We kiss and it lasts forever and I can only think that I love him. And I’m sorry for everything, though I can’t say it out loud. I lit the spark again with my hug, but the fire had been waiting. And it’s okay now. Everything is okay.

            We push against each other and I feel his body close against mine. I feel him and how warm he is, even though the rain is colder than I’ve ever felt it before. And then he’s gone—that fast, he climbs back up the boat. Unseen. I’ve let love live. And part of me still knows I will regret it. That the Gods aren’t real. That the logic we’ve always clung to made more sense than this fantasy we’ve all fallen into. A trap. Something too good to be true. I fall behind the wheel, and it’s impossible to let the negativity stay. I have a full belly, relatively dry clothes, new friends, Voley, Russell—who is my entire family—and a boy I’m in love with. And I haven’t seen a living face eater in over a week.

Chapter 14

We have the slowest, happiest dinner. I could eat fish for every day of my life. And the face eater body bait is all used up, but Ernest is recycling fish for more bait. Clemmy is the best fisher in Montana, Ernest says as we carefully suck the flavor out of every morsel. I’m sitting next to Dusty. Voley is under the table, waiting patiently for his scraps. Everything is warm under the deck. Ernest says we have enough fuel to keep the stove going for two more weeks, and that’s much more time than we’ll need. By tomorrow, he thinks, we’ll have Leadville in our sights. Russell talks more about the map, and how they’ve used it to figure out the mountain range, figure out exactly where we are in relation to the town. But there’s more to do, and they go up to the wheelhouse to discuss tomorrow’s plan in case we have find a spit to land on before reaching our real destination. Clemmy follows them up. Clint remains with us at the table, long after we’ve finished eating. It’s like he senses we want to be alone and he doesn’t like it. It’s giving him trouble, seeing us together. But he knows better than to say anything now. Not after the way Russell came at him earlier. We wait, in case he wants to talk, to say anything at all.

            “Seems a bit too good to be true, doesn’t it?” he says. I want to kick him. He’s a downer, and he’s become more irritating to be around. Even Ernest seems to have noticed it. I’ve heard them arguing twice since the time Russell came at him. I almost thought I overheard something about the drug storage containers, but I can’t be sure. My paranoid imagination can still flare up, even at heaven’s doorstep. Still, I have visions of him sneaking into that stash when no one’s around and taking a pinch of it. Eating it, getting a touch of the crazed mind. Not the full thing.

            He waits for us to say something. Dusty does it first: I’m going to mess with the radio. Then he just stands up and leaves the table. It’s your shift isn’t it? I ask him. I know it is and he does too. In another ten minutes, Ernest will come down and holler if he’s not out on the motorboat, keeping her in a straight line.

The shifts have become worse. They’re much harder, mainly because it’s grown so cold so suddenly—the rain and the wind. And with the wind, it’s also been the swells. The boat has to be manned every time the
Resilience
moves forward, otherwise it will hold her up in the sea, and knock into her. It could split her hull if we’re not careful, says Ernest.

Clint fidgets at my silent request that he leave. But he continues to stare at me with his pale blue eyes. They’re looking right through me—looking for something that I don’t have for him. I can’t tell what it is. And it’s not time to start making accusations the night before we get to Leadville. I can’t mess things up. He’ll be easier to deal with on land. That’s what I tell myself. And there always has to be something, doesn’t there? I say to myself as he still sits, refusing to take his shift. One person, one thing. Always something. And now it’s this asshole.

            Clint looks at Dusty, who’s huddled on the floor by the radio. I hear it clicking on and I hear the static start up. Voley has stayed next to me, and even nudged up against me under the table. The last thing I like doing anymore is turning my back to Clint, but with Voley here, I know I’m okay. Voley’s leg is as good as it was before he was shot, just like my arm. At least we’re both acting that way. And I know he would protect me if anything happened. He would strike Clint dead in a heartbeat. And Voley licks my hand. Like he’s letting me know that what I’m thinking is accurate. Then Clint slides his chair back and sighs. He stands and heads up the stairs.